


Two Worlds

by deborah_judge



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Disguise, F/M, Religious Conflict, Religious Themes & References, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-27
Updated: 2011-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-15 23:32:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deborah_judge/pseuds/deborah_judge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Elim Garak helped young Vedek Opaka become Kai.  Originally posted in 2005.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Worlds

**Author's Note:**

> _Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided, one shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger._
> 
> Genesis 25:23

Vedek Opaka was the youngest of the Vedeks at the time of the Cardassian invasion. She was also the only one to remain free at the time of the destruction of the Vedek Assembly. She was sheltered by a young man of the resistance, who hid her in a cave not far from the capital.

She remained in that cave for two weeks, this strange cave that glittered of glass and metal. It had been a spaceship, an ancient spaceship from before science was lost on this world. It was in fact a Cardassian spaceship, her rescuer explained, and the time of its arrival coincided with the brief flowering of science on Bajor.

'Is that why you betrayed the Assembly?' the Vedek asked him. For of course he had, and that was how he knew how to find her.

The young man wept. He explained that he had believed the Cardassians when they told him that it was only worship of the Prophets that had kept the Bajorans from progress and knowledge, and only the Cardassians that could teach them to reach the stars. And yet he had repented, for love of a homeland is stronger than yearning for truth.

Kai Opaka used to tell this story, to say that in the love of the Prophets anything can be understood, and everything can be forgiven.

It is said that this man was the father of her child.

*

Young ensign Elim Garak folded his arms and leaned back against the doorway. "Well," said Tain, "that was a creative interpretation of your orders."

"'I know," said Garak. "You expected me to torture her, rape her, and convince her of the truth of the Cardassian way through pain. Undeniably effective, but how dull."

"Fascinating application of Obsidian Order technology."

"Yes," Garak beamed. The surgery to make a Cardassian appear Bajoran was experimental, but apparently completely effective.

"What was the spaceship?"

"One of their own. It never got offworld."

"You understand why this mission was necessary? Why Opaka had to become impregnated with a Cardassian child?"

Garak was quite sure he knew why Tain had assigned him this particular mission, and that it had less to do with Bajoran politics than with a kind of politics much closer to home. Tain could not stand to be implicated in a guilt he did not share with another. Still, he gave the answer he knew Tain would expect. "This way we have a hold over her," Garak said. "We will be able to offer her help to disguise her half-Cardassian child. We will give it to her, and she will know that if she ever breaks her oath of loyalty we will expose her and she will be known for the Cardie-lover she is."

"And you thought this was more merciful way to complete the mission, I expect."

Yes, Garak thought. Lying to a woman about her history and her people's. Pretending devotion, pretending repentance, and leaving her with a bastard half-breed child. He supposed this is what Enabran Tain would consider merciful.

Garak wondered if he would ever see his son. He did not think he would. The young, brave Vedek deserved better than to have a Cardassian haunting her family. And he was an Obsidian Order operative now. He did not need to concern himself with bastards.

*

Kai Opaka watched the unfolding scene in her secluded Orb. There was little in it that surprised her. It is not easy to deceive one who has been blessed with visions by the Prophets. She had known what Elim Garak was, from the moment he had approached her in the wreckage of the Vedek Assembly. She had known his lies, and still she had followed him.

When the Cardassians offered to institute her as Kai she had accepted, and had consented to all their conditions without comment or question. The new Vedek Assembly would accept applicants of all d'jarras, male as well as female. Science would be taught in Bajoran schools alongside theology. The Vedeks all swore to accept her as their Kai, except for those who would not and remained in prison.

Opaka had pretended to believe Garak's lies, had allowed him to love her with a passion he would never believe that he had felt, had touched him with forgiveness that he would not understand that he had asked for. Then she had gone to the Cardassian authorities, after he deserted her, and accepted their offer of protection for her child. If this was the only way they would be able to trust her, and to trust the Vedeks, so be it.

She had known Garak's lies, and yet so many of them were true. The Cardassians and Bajorans had been linked by spaceflight long ago, and only the joining of their civilizations had made possible what they had become. Two worlds, forged in the womb of the Prophets. Their destinies were one, and would unfold together, in the Prophets' mercy.

The Kai placed her hands on her rounded belly to feel her son's heartbeat. She would love him, and would thank the Prophets for him, this child of two worlds. Only let him not know, she thought. But that was foolish, she could never protect him, not from this world his mother and father had created. She could only hope that he would survive to see their two worlds become one, a place where he could live without fear.

Elsewhere, the resistance was fighting. She envied their clarity, but it was not her path. All she knew was the way of the Prophets' service. The reconstituted Vedek Assembly, even in subjugation, would keep the Bajoran soul alive. This was her work on Bajor, and it was for this that the Prophets had made her their Kai.

When she could, she would pray for the resistance, but also for her son of two worlds, and for the world of her son's father, the young Cardassian that she would never see again.


End file.
